St. VI. l. 23.—Fifty thousand warriors.
The French acknowledge to have had 45,000 men engaged, and we know that the effective British scarcely, if at all, exceeded 20,000.
⁂ Since these pages were first published, there have appeared in the Moniteur of Sept. 28, 1809, notes on Lord Wellington’s dispatches, which admit the disparity to have been still greater than the most sanguine Englishman had thought—than even we romancers had imagined.
They state the army which attacked Lord Wellesley, (as they call him,) to have consisted of the 1st and 4th corps, and the reserve; and their force they allege to have been,—the 1st corps, 36 battalions; the 4th, 30 battalions; and the reserve, 20 battalions, exclusive of the cavalry, which was 40 squadrons. Now these 86 battalions, if complete, would have numbered about 60,000 infantry; and even if but half complete, would have exceeded Lord Wellington’s force, (which they admit to have been but 20,000) by 10,000 of infantry alone, or, reckoning the cavalry, by 14,000 men. But, in fact, they may be taken at 500 men to each battalion at least, that is, in the whole, at 43,000 infantry, and about 4,000 cavalry. 1810.
It is now known, that the French force consisted of about 50,000 men. 1812.
St. VIII. l. 6.—Cold allies.
The government and generals of Spain, at the period of the battle of Talavera, were more than usually tardy and feeble in all their measures. After the battle, Sir A. Wellesley was disabled from pursuing his advantages, and (when he was obliged, by General Cuesta’s extraordinary conduct, to retreat,) his army was almost exhausted, for want of those means of transport which the Spanish authorities had liberally promised him, and which, in fact, they could have furnished in sufficient abundance. While the guns taken at Talavera were in the possession of the English, the Spanish General could not be induced to afford the means of drawing them; but when, on this account, the English were forced to abandon them, the Spaniards easily found cattle for their conveyance. So, when the British army laid down its ammunition for want of means to carry it, the Spaniards found no difficulty in bringing it away for their own use[2]. The correspondence between Sir A. Wellesley, Lord Wellesley, and M. de Garay, in 1809, afford many similar proofs of the coldness of the government of our allies; though it is now clear that it did not exist (as Sir J. Moore seems to have supposed) in all classes: the lower orders, and not a few of the higher, have all along exhibited irrefragable proofs of the warmest enthusiasm, and the most patriotic devotion. There have been, and there still are, a great number of persons in Spain, who, to say the best of them, are inclined to temporize; and too many of this class have found means to influence the national operations.—In spite of them, however, the spirit of the people may save their country; and I shall not despair, however ‘Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,’ of the cause of Spain, till ‘the bold peasantry, its country’s pride,’ shall have passed under the usurper’s yoke.
St. VIII. l. 14.—The agony of fame.
This expression, and another in the last line of the XXVIIth Stanza, are borrowed from a splendid passage of Mr. Burke’s, in which, speaking of Lord Keppel, he says, ‘With what zeal and anxious affection I attended him through his trial, that agony of his glory—with what prodigality I squandered myself in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake,’ &c. Burke’s Works, v. 8, p. 54.
St. VIII. l. 21.—Factious spite.